Government Buildings

[A/A Fuel GTX]

I hope I'm in the proper forum for this question so here goes. I have been an electrician working for the Postal Service for over 20 years and we are not required to be licensed nor do we need permits to do anything. I work in a very industrial setting dealing with voltages up to 480. I pride myself in being as code knowledgeable as I can possibly be and take any code training I am able to. Are there any ideas as to why the very entity that spawned OSHA does not require its own to be certified?

 

[jbwhite]

Re: Government Buildings

Because they dont have to..

OSHA does not require electrical licence, local law does.

The federal govt is exempt from local law.

The same reason that fed gvt vehicles dont need licence plates or insurance.

I would guess that they do have standards that you must adhear to. ... dont they?

 

[apauling]

Re: Government Buildings

i inspected for a government project and it was a b**** getting good workmanship out of the minority contractors. There seems to be some unstated operating rules that are much different than the actual contracting stipulations. for example, most contracts will state that they must be built to all area applicable codes (codes enforced in the area but not on federal turf), and then they allow variations that are against the "enforced" documents.

It seems many of the contractors know how to game them. This is a slippery area to talk about, so I won't go over the line. They are just like every one else, 10% bad, 80 % good, 10% great. The bad is what screws everything up.

it's just that there is no public oversight, no different than CalTrans, a seperate society.

My personal belief is that if all, and i do mean all government retirement and medical was the same system as the rest of us, social security being a mandatory deduction, there wouldn't be all the problems we have to deal with. If it wasn't a seperate system, it would get fixed. 9/10ths of the pissed offness in society would go away. But when they get elected, they never look back at the stuff we have, and they used to have it. If they didn't have a seperate medical, there would be a national system that wotked. You could bet the bundle that they would make sure that it worked if they had to depend on it.

sorry for the soap box, but that one idea could save the rest of us one heck of a lot of suffering.

paul

 

[A/A Fuel GTX]

Re: Government Buildings

I have my own personal standards that I adhere to regarding the NEC. If I am unsure about something, I find the answer one way or another. The Postal Service is very concerned about workplace safety but often lacks the expertise in the various codes of the trades.

 

[haskindm]

Re: Government Buildings

The NEC applies to public buildings. However the Federal Government is exempt from local legislation so the local inspectors have no jurisdiction on federal property. The AHJ (whoever that is) on a federal building should enforce the NEC. The catch-22 for those actually doing the work on federal buildings is that the NEC is also suitable "for use by insurance inspectors" (90.4), so in the event that someone gets hurt or there is a fire the insurance inspectors are going to determine if the installation met the requirements of the NEC. Bottom line, exempt or not, the only way to CYA on a government installation is to follow the NEC.

My personal belief is that if all, and i do mean all government retirement and medical was the same system as the rest of us, social security being a mandatory deduction, there wouldn't be all the problems we have to deal with. If it wasn't a seperate system, it would get fixed.

The separate government pension plan was phased out in the 1980's. Since then all government employees, including congress, have been covered by Social Security. This is some mis-information that has been circulating on the internet for years. Go to www.snopes.com and search on social security for the straight scoop.